


We Are Coming Home

by eternaleponine



Series: The 100 Clexa Reunion [9]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 00:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5723251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke returns to Camp Jaha to try to talk some sense into Bellamy.</p>
<p>Follows <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5665366">Jus Drein, Jus Daun</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	We Are Coming Home

Lexa waited until Octavia and Indra were gone, the door shut behind them, and then finally, finally looked at Clarke. It was happening again. It was all happening all over again. The Ice Nation, the Ice Queen... she was going to take everything that meant anything away from her. She had tried and failed to destroy her once. She wasn't going to accept the same fate a second time.

"What do I do?" Clarke asked, but though it was a question, and even though there was something a little bit helpless, a little bit lost in her eyes, Lexa knew that she already knew the answer. Not Lexa's answer, but her own. She already knew what she was going to do, what she _had_ to do. She just needed Lexa to agree with her... or maybe to try to talk her out of it. 

She could do neither. The first would be a lie and the second would be futile. "I cannot tell you what to do," Lexa answered instead. "I can try to advise you to the best of my ability, but that is all. In the end, the decision is yours." She got up, going down the couple of steps to the main floor of the room, starting to pace and then stopping herself, because even if there was no one to see, she could not betray any sign of weakness or indecision. 

"Do you think... is this really a threat?" Clarke asked. 

"Yes," Lexa said. "I think this is really a threat."

"Most people – most of your people – don't have any reason to want to help my people," Clarke said. "Why would the Ice Nation reach out to them?"

"Because they are in my territory," Lexa said. "They are within striking distance of my stronghold. And..." She swallowed, forced herself to look Clarke in the eye. "I have already shown myself to be weak in regards to your people. Asking only one life in place of eighteen, and then when you took it rather than allowing us to serve our own form of justice, I let that go, too. In TonDC, people from every clan died. I was the one who brought them there, to discuss aiding your people. But I lived. So did you. They may think that it was intentional on my part, that they would lose some of the leaders of their clans. I offered up their lives to bring down the mountain, because our people were inside, but also because you asked it, for your people."

"But then you walked away. You negotiated the release of your people, and you walked away. No – not that many lives were lost that day."

"Some see this as weakness, as well. That I allowed someone else to bring down the mountain for me, instead of letting my warriors get the vengeance that we all so desperately desired."

"You made the choice that saved the most lives," Clarke said. "I didn't like it – I hated you for walking away when I needed you – but I understood. Or I understand now. How can—"

"When you are a leader," Lexa said, "you are forced to make choices. Often there is no right choice and wrong choice. There is only a bad choice and a worse one. No matter what I did, no matter what I choose, there will be those who do not agree. The issue of your people – the issue of you, and what you did that I did not – it is fuel for their fires."

Clarke was quiet for a minute. "And me being here now?"

Lexa didn't know what to say to that. She didn't know how to tell Clarke that she was the biggest chink in her armor. Except she did. She'd already told her. "Love is weakness," she said. 

The words landed, and there was the briefest flicker of emotion – hurt, betrayal – before Clarke clamped down on it. She was learning, and it made Lexa's chest ache that she was learning. "So you want me to go," she said. "So that I don't make you weak."

"No," Lexa said. "I don't want you to go." And there it was, out loud between them. The truth, for all the good that it did. "You leaving is the last thing I want. You trust Octavia, but you trusted Bellamy, too. Who is to say that she is not on the same side that he is? She was Indra's second. Lincoln's lover. She could have made a place for herself with my people. Instead, she turned her back on us because she had to save her friends. She had to save her brother. Do you think that that has changed?"

Clarke was quiet, and it took Lexa a moment to realize that she was taking the question seriously. "I think that it might have," she said finally. "Not her love for her brother," she added, "but... I think that she has grown enough, become independent enough, that if she thinks that he is doing the wrong thing, that if she thinks he's choosing the wrong side, she will try to stop him. If talking to him herself didn't work... I think she hopes that I will be able to talk sense into him."

"Do you think you can?" Lexa asked. 

"I don't know," Clarke admitted. "But I think I have to try."

"Then there is your answer," Lexa said, feeling sick. "That is what you do." 

"And what will you do?" Clarke asked.

"I will see if I can determine whether this is a rogue faction of the Ice Nation, or if it is something that is coming from their Queen. I also need to see if it's just _Azgeda_ , or if there are others who are likely to come to their aid, including members of my own clan. This is a threat to the coalition. This is a threat to me. Because if they get your people, they get your people's guns. And then..." She didn't really need to finish. Clarke knew well enough how badly that could end for the Trikru, and anyone else who got in the way. 

"Why now?" Clarke asked. "Why are they approaching them now, and not before?"

"Because it is nearly winter. The trees have lost their leaves, and we have lost their cover as a result. Not all of the trees, but enough. They know how to fight in these conditions better than we do. This is what they are used to. They will use every advantage they can get, and that is not a small one."

"What if there's nothing we can do?" Clarke asked. "What if they convince my people, or even some of my people? What if there's no way to stop this from happening?"

"Then we fight," Lexa said. "But this time, you and I fight together."

"I thought love was weakness," Clarke said.

"Love _is_ weakness," Lexa said. "It can be used against you, and if you think for even a second that they won't try, then you are not as smart as I thought. Even if Octavia isn't on the other side, you need to consider the fact that if you go to your people, you may be walking straight into a trap. That those that the Ice Nation has already turned may try to capture you, to bring you back to the Queen as a prize, and a bargaining chip, not just with your people, but with me."

"Oh," Clarke said, and it was obvious that she _hadn't_ considered that possibility. "Like..."

"Costia," Lexa said. "Yes. Just like Costia."

"That won't happen again," Clarke said, her voice dropping to a fierce hiss. "I won't let that happen again."

Lexa nodded, because what else was she supposed to do? "I hope that that is so."

"I'll go, and I'll come back. And then... we'll do whatever we have to do, depending on what happens when I talk to Bellamy. I... I guess I'm hoping that, whatever else he thinks, or feels, or does... I hope that he cares enough about me that he won't send me to almost certain death."

"I will hope the same," Lexa said. She closed the distance between them, reaching for Clarke and grasping her arms. "Be on your guard," she said. "Trust your instincts. If it feels wrong, get out of there."

Clarke nodded. "I will."

But she wouldn't. Not if she thought there was any chance of turning things around. Because that was just how she was. She was stubborn, sometimes to the point of stupidity, and she had an almost unwavering faith in the food in people. Especially the people that she considered friends. Lexa hoped she wouldn't have to learn the hard way that when you were a leader, you couldn't afford to have friends... or faith... or anything else. _That_ was what she meant when she said that love was weakness.

And yet here she was, unwilling to let go of the girl who had turned her world completely upside down. 

"I don't want you to go," she said softly, "but I know that you have to."

"This isn't goodbye, Lexa," Clarke said. "I'll come back. _Ai komba raun houm nodataim_."

Lexa's eyes pricked with tears, and she blinked them away quickly. "Go, then. Before it starts to get dark."

Clarke looked at her, searching her eyes but Lexa didn't know what for, and then nodded. "May we meet again."

"May we meet again," she whispered, and this time she was the one left standing there watching the girl that she loved walk away.

* * *

They rode out less than an hour later. They weren't alone, but Clarke hadn't expected they would be. Indra was among those sent to make sure that she and Octavia made it back to Camp Jaha alive, which Clarke was both grateful for and worried about, because Indra was one of the few people that she trusted to be absolutely loyal to Lexa.

They had been given – or lent – horses and supplies, although the journey was not such a long one that they were likely to need most of what had been sent. The supplies could be used as a gift from the Grounders to the Sky People, Clarke figured, or bargaining chips, or something. That was for her to decide, she assumed, because Lexa hadn't given instructions. 

She was on her own.

Except hopefully not completely. "So what happened?" she asked Octavia. "Bellamy – he's never been the Grounders' biggest fan. Why, all of a sudden, is he listening to them?"

Octavia sighed. "I don't know," she said. "At least, I don't know all of it."

"Tell me what you do know," Clarke said. She didn't mean for it to sound like a command, and she quickly added, "Please," to try to soften it.

"It started with a girl named Echo," Octavia said, and went on to explain that she had been one of the captives in Mount Weather, caged next to Bellamy, and she'd helped him communicate to the other Grounders what the plan was, and that there was, in fact, a plan, to get them out. In the end it had ended up being moot, but it didn't change the fact that they had made some kind of connection in there. And Echo was of the Ice Nation, and had apparently been sent as the first emissary from that clan to the Sky People.

"If she was in Mount Weather, shouldn't she be grateful to L—the Commander?" Clarke asked, not sure why she bothered to try to cover the slip. She was pretty sure that Octavia had already figured things out. "She was freed without any more loss of life."

"You would think that," Octavia said, "but that's not always how things work."

"What are they offering?" Clarke asked. "Do you know?"

"They are offering protection," Octavia said. "An alliance, I guess. They have a lot of people convinced that the Trikru is going to turn on them at any moment, that they lured them into a false sense of security before, by offering a truce, and that they have been using that time to prepare themselves to wipe them out once and for all."

"No," Clarke said sharply. "That's not—"

" _I_ know that," Octavia interrupted, "and _you_ know that, but they don't know that. Or they don't believe it."

"No one has attacked them since they walked away from Mount Weather," Clarke said. But did she know that for sure? How much did she _really_ know about what was happening in the world around her during that time when she'd wandered on her own, and then outside the walls of Polis? Only what Lexa told her, and she had assumed that what she was being told was the truth, but how could she really be sure of that? The only way to know was to ask. "Have they?"

Octavia frowned. "There have been a few incidents, but... pretty much everything that has happened, they've started."

They. Which they? When Octavia spoke about the people from the former Ark, the Sky People, she seemed not to count herself as one of them, at least not all of the time. And she seemed to exclude Clarke from the group as well. Was it intentional? 

"Our people?" Clarke asked, but that didn't actually help clarify, because who were their people? Their loyalties were divided now, their hearts split. "Camp Jaha?"

Octavia nodded. "It's like on the bridge. Jasper shot first."

Clarke closed her eyes for a moment, suppressing a sigh. "How many casualties?" she asked.

"I don't know," Octavia admitted. "But no fatalities."

"That's something."

"They're not trying to kill us," Octavia said. "The Trikru. They're just trying to keep us—" Her face scrunched up, and Clarke could see then that she was struggling in the same way that Clarke did with defining the groups and their place in them. "They're trying to keep us from taking over. Laying claim to things that aren't ours."

"Which would seem like they should be within their rights to do," Clarke said.

"It would seem that way," Octavia said, "but people don't like it. So they are willing to believe that they're keeping us penned, waiting for winter, waiting for us to grow weak because we aren't prepared, and then cut us all down. They heard about the fever that they sent. They worry that it will happen again, or something worse. And Echo, and the Ice Nation, they are offering their support. They are offering supplies, and intelligence, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

"The Ice Nation and the Trikru aren't enemies," Clarke said. "They're not supposed to be."

"Is that what the Commander says?" Octavia asked.

"Yes," Clarke said. _But it's not what Lexa would say._ "She wants peace."

Silence, and they rode on along the paths through the woods. Finally, Octavia broke it. "You love her."

" _Sha,_ ," Clarke answered, her voice low so that it did not carry. " _Ai hod em in._ "

Octavia blinked, surprised, Clarke assumed, that she had learned any of the Grounders' language. Why she was surprised, Clarke wasn't sure – wasn't learning things about the person that you loved part of loving them? In this case, it happened to be a whole different culture and language.

Or maybe she was surprised that Clarke had actually admitted it. But there really didn't seem to be any point in denying it. Silence settled between them, and Clarke let it be.

"We're almost there," Octavia said finally. The sun was low in the sky, but the days were very short now. They rode up to the gates of the camp, and stopped. Octavia slid down off her horse's back and approached ahead of the rest of them. Clarke was far enough back that she couldn't hear what was being said, but it sounded like some kind of argument. 

But then someone came running, and the gate was opening and they were being let in, although their Grounder guards didn't make it more than a few steps past the gate before they were made to disarm or stay where they were, under guard. 

"Clarke!" 

She was engulfed in her mother's arms as soon as her feet hit the ground, too startled to hug her back. There was a part of her that wanted to push her away, that was set on edge by the abrupt close contact, that thought maybe she was under attack. But she wasn't, and she tried to silence that part of her. 

"Oh Clarke," she said, holding her now at arm's length. "It's so good to see you. We... we heard things, but we didn't know. We couldn't be sure."

"I'm okay, Mom," she said, and was surprised that she actually felt like it was true. She didn't know how long it would last, how many faces she could see, how many sets of eyes she could look into before she broke, but for now, she was okay. "I'm safe."

"With..." Her mother was searching her eyes, silently begging her to deny what she had been told, it felt like.

"Lexa. The Commander. Yes."

"Why?" 

"Because it's where I need to be," Clarke said. 

"Everyone will be so glad that you're back," her mother said. 

"I'm not back," Clarke said. "I'm not here to see everyone. I'm here to talk to Bellamy." And now she was searching her mother's face for a reaction, for some indication of where she fell on the subject, because she had to know. If her mother was siding with Bellamy, with forming an alliance with the Ice Nation and shattering Lexa's peace... 

Abby sighed. "Octavia told you."

"Yes."

"I don't know if it will do any good. Even if you can convince Bellamy... there are others. Many others."

"How many?"

"I don't know for sure," Abby said. "Sometimes I think a quarter, sometimes I think closer to half. Sometimes I feel like it's everyone but a handful of us."

"They want war?"

"They think that war is inevitable. They have been convinced that war will come whether they go looking for it or not."

"And they think that by siding with the _Azgeda_ , they will avoid it?"

"They think that by siding with them, they will be on the winning side of it."

"It's eleven clans against one," Clarke said, even though she had no way of knowing if that was true, and was fairly confident that it wasn't. Unless the Ice Nation vastly outnumbered the other clans (and if you came from a place with ice in the name, it didn't seem likely to that they would be able to support a huge population) it would seem like the basest stupidity to go up against every other clan of your people. They couldn't have _that_ much faith in the Sky People's guns.

"Are you sure of that?" Abby asked. "Would you stake your life on it?"

Clarke sighed. "No."

"Well then. I wish you luck, but I'm not sure that luck is enough."

And then she was taken to Bellamy, who looked her up and down, and a smile flickered to life on his otherwise grim face, but it was short-lived. "Octavia brought you," he said. "She thinks I'm wrong. She thinks you can convince me of that."

"Is there any point in trying?" Clarke asked.

"Not really," Bellamy said. "They betrayed us. They attacked us, killed us, formed a truce with us, and then betrayed us and left us to our deaths. Why should we believe anything they say now?"

"The Commander made the decision to save her people. Not just her people in the mountain, but all of the warriors that might have died in the battle to take it, and all of those who might be taken as Reapers. She saved thousands of lives, possibly for generations, instead of the less than fifty of us that were in the mountain," Clarke said. "If you were in her position, would you have done any different? If you could have saved our people, even if it was at the expense of the Grounders, can you honestly say you would have made a different choice?"

Bellamy didn't answer the question. He didn't need to. "So it's true," he said instead. "You're in bed with her now. Literally."

"We want the same thing," Clarke said. 

"What's that?"

"Peace."

"At what cost?"

"Whatever the cost," Clarke said.

"She left you to die, Clarke," Bellamy said. "That was the cost she was willing to accept for her peace before. Why would you even think about trusting her now?"

"Because I know her," Clarke said. "Because I have talked to her, and I believe what she says. Because she listens to me. Because we understand each other. No one else can understand the decisions I've had to make. No one else knows what that's like. No one else knows what I've had to do."

"I do!" Bellamy said. "I was _there_ , Clarke! Or have you forgotten? We pulled that lever together!"

"No," Clarke said. "We didn't."

Bellamy stared at her like he didn't know who she was anymore, and maybe he didn't. Maybe he never had. She had thought, for a while, that they were working toward the same goal, that they were on the same side, but were they really?

"You didn't want to," Clarke said. "You only changed your mind when you realized that they had Octavia, that your sister was in trouble. And I can't pretend to know what that's like, because obviously I don't know. None of us know what it's like to have a sibling. And the fact that they had my mom was part of it, but it wasn't all of it. I knew... I knew when I went in what the outcome was likely to be. I knew the decision that I had to make. You thought there could be some other way. I knew that there wasn't. _I_ pulled that lever, Bellamy. _I_ killed those people. _I_ have to live with that for the rest of my life."

"And you think that she can make that easier?" Bellamy asked, his tone one of disbelief. 

"I think she already has," Clarke said. "And I think if we're going to make it through this, if we're going to keep our people alive, she's our best chance."

"What is she offering?" Bellamy asked. "What are her terms?"

"So you're willing to discuss it?"

Bellamy looked at her, and there was a weight to the air around them, like they were trapped inside somewhere and running out of oxygen, but that wasn't the case. "I thought she sent you as her ambassador," he said, not kindly. "I thought you were here to present her terms."

"I'm here to keep you from making a big mistake."

"How do you know that it's a mistake?" Bellamy asked. "What do you know about any of this? You haven't talked to them. You don't know what they're offering. And I don't think you have any idea what your precious Commander has done to achieve the so-called peace, this alliance of the clans. You don't know how much blood was shed to get to that point."

"Neither do you," Clarke said. "You think that you can just believe anything that you're told by them? Do you know what they did to her?" The words came out without her thinking about them, and she realized then that she shouldn't have said them, because it wasn't hers to tell. Lexa's grief shouldn't be a bargaining chip, but maybe it could convince him that the people he was dealing with weren't as magnanimous and guilt-free as he thought.

"Enlighten me," he sneered.

"The queen of the Ice Nation took the girl that Lexa loved, tortured her, and when she refused to reveal any of Lexa's secrets, which she may or may not have had, they killed her. Cut off her head. And still, Lexa made peace with them. She could have let it lead to endless war, but she still sought peace. You think she is so hard, so cold..." Clarke shook her head. "She doesn't want to keep fighting. Not with us, not with anyone. She will if she has to, but it's not what she wants. If you would just _talk_ to her..."

"She has had months to talk, and she hasn't said anything," Bellamy said. "No offer of assistance, nothing. Someone else stepped in to fill that void. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe it's _you_ who are on the wrong side?"

She'd considered it. Briefly. And maybe she was blinded by what she felt, by the promises of peace that Lexa made, not just for their people, but for her, personally, with her lips and her touch and a place at her side in bed at night... but she'd decided that she was more willing to take a chance on the devil that she knew than one that was unknown. 

"I trust her," Clarke said.

"She betrayed you."

"I trust her."

"Then you're a fool," Bellamy said. "She's isn't the only leader among the Grounders, and she won't stay on her high and mighty throne for much longer. Don't drag our people down with you, making them believe that she stands a chance."

"So that's it, then?" Clarke said. "I'm just wasting my time? You've already decided."

"I didn't decide anything," Bellamy said. "She did, when she walked away. From us. From TonDC. Remember that. She brought this on herself."

"I'll remember," Clarke said. "I'll tell her."

"You're going back?"

"Of course I am," Clarke said. "When we came to Earth, we thought we were home. And we were. We are. I am. I'm going back. I'm going home."


End file.
